JE#3A

My definition of Cultural Schizophrenia is being caught in between cultures due to contradicting, opposing, and battling societal standards. As a Queer Chicana woman there are so many different expectations that I am expected to meet. Suffering from Cultural Schizophrenia is really difficult because the only way that I have learned to cope with it is through using "masks." I have a mask for all aspects of my life: school, work, home, relationships, organizing, and so forth. These masks were created to please everyone else and keep all the people in my life content. As a Mexican raised woman I do not think we were taught to take care of ourselves first, but we were taught to serve, care for, and manage everyone else's life. These gender roles that I was socialized to follow have been so invisibly harmful to my life that it took so much for me to actually see I had a problem. In having to serve others over myself I forgot to take care of myself. There are a lot of times where I do not even know who I am because I am everything everyone wants me to be; I am a good daughter, a good sister, a good woman, and a good catholic. However, the worst part is that all these masks and roles fused together to create someone I don't know. To further fan the fires, there is the American standards that are tag teaming against me. So not only am I expected to be a good Mexican woman (in its entirety) but also a good American woman. I am in this nepantla state where I am both and I am neither. I am in this pit I haven't event started to crawl out of. My life right now...